All Star Game: What a show, what a shame

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July 16, 12:13 PM

by David Bush, S.F. Baseball Examiner

 

 

Bud Selig doesn't listen to reason. Photo: Boston Globe 

Baseball got what it deserved Tuesday night.

• A long, riveting   All-Star Game that more than half the country missed because it had to go to work Wednesday morning.
• Some anxious moments among the baseball brass engendered by its half-witted idea of linking the outcome to home field in the World Series

• The very real possibility of a third baseman and an outfielder being the opposing pitchers in an event created to showcase premier talent.

     The absurd starting time of after 8:30 p.m. in the East, guaranteed that even had game gone just nine innings it would have ended long after much of the work force east of the Mississippi had retired for the night. And by the conclusion of the four hour, 50 minute affair, even much of the West Coast audience had turned off the lights and turned on the video recorder.

     I know that because the television networks, FOX in this case, pay baseball oodles of cash, they call the shots on starting times. Although the network execs want to assure that the viewers in New York have had time for supper before the show starts, it seems to me that it becomes a self-defeating philosophy as the game drags on. But ad agencies, who have more at stake than I do, are apparently satisfied that they get the best value in the current set-up. And it seems to me that as the evening wore on commercial emphasis shifted from beer and cars to Viagra. Maybe “The Most Interesting Man in the World” had designs on his table companion and decided a six pack of Dos Equis was not quite enough.

      Despite the relative lack of offense, the game itself was entertaining. Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook had to get five outs in the 10^th inning, and his escaping the bases loaded, no outs predicament caused by Dan Uggla’s two errors, was great theater. Other memorable moments included Russell Martin showing what a difference an athletic catcher can make, Miguel Tejada’s off balance throw to retire Justin Morneau at first to end the 10th and second base umpire Tom Hallion blowing at least two calls on stolen base attempts.

      The game ended just in time to spare the embarrassment of the team’s running out of pitchers. Commissioner Bud Selig, who gave us the World Series home field incentive, thought he had solved that problem by increasing each team’s complement of pitchers to a dozen. But as the bullpens emptied a crisis developed. NL manager Clint Hurdle and AL counterpart Terry Francona had vowed not to use Arizona’s Brandon Webb and Tampa Bay’s Scott Kazmir respectively. Guess what? Webb pitched the 14^th and winner Kazmir worked the 15^th and said he was good to go for the 16^th. But what if they played a 17^th? New York’s David Wright, a third baseman by trade who was the NL’s designated hitter, was next in line for the visitors, while Boston outfielder J.D. Drew, who took home the MVP trophy anyway, would have pitched the bottom of the inning.

     What would have been next? Getting Jose Canseco off the canvas to throw his knuckleball? Seriously, position players pitching would have made a farce of the whole thing, and the possibility of injury to valuable commodities would have been very real?  But with the World Series schedule dependant on the outcome, a tie is apparently an impossible ending, no matter what the cost to the game’s dignity.

      “All’s well that ends well,’’ Selig was quoted as saying afterward. But every time the television cameras found the commissioner, he did not look like a man enjoying himself. Discomfort serves him right.

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